MOSCOW SKYSCRAPER STRUCK IN OVERNIGHT DRONE ATTACK

Tue 01 August 2023:

The Russian military said its anti-aircraft units had thwarted a Ukrainian “terrorist attack” early on Tuesday and downed drones targeting Moscow, but one drone, sent out of control by its units, struck the same high-rise tower hit earlier in the week.

“On the night of August 1st, an attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime with lethal drones on targets in Moscow and Moscow region was thwarted,” the defence ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Two drones, the ministry said, had been downed in suburbs west of the city centre.

“Yet another (drone) was hit by radio-electronic equipment and, having run out of control, crashed on the territory of the complex of non-residential buildings at Moskva Citi,” the ministry said, referring to a business centre in the capital.

Vnukovo airport, one of three major airports serving the capital, briefly shut down but later resumed full operations.

Earlier, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said one of the drones targeting the capital had flown into the same tower at Moscow that had been struck earlier in the week.

“One flew into the same tower at the Moskva Citi complex hit previously. The facade has been damaged on the 21st floor. Glazing was destroyed over 150 square metres.”

Sobyanin said no injuries were reported.

The Kremlin has said it was clear that a threat existed after the latest drone attack on Moscow, in which a high-rise building in Moscow’s business district was struck for the second time in three days.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined further comment.

Russia’s defence ministry called the latest incident an attempted Ukrainian “terrorist attack”.

Meanwhile, Kyiv typically does not claim responsibility for specific incidents on Russian territory.

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